Obama has told US negotiators to be “creative” in negotiating Iran’s demand for instant sanctions upon signing a nuclear deal. A down payment from Iran’s multibillion frozen assets could solve the problem.

Yet another Obama administration thrust in its campaign to stigmatize Binyamin Netanyahu and Israel came Tuesday, March 24, as a pejorative leak to The Wall Street Journal, which reported: “Israeli intelligence was eavesdropping on closed-door nuclear negotiations between Iran and the US, then passing the classified information along to the US Congress." debkafile: The WSJ story means that the Obama administration failed to keep its promise to update Israel about the nuclear talks with Iran, and so Israel needed to activate spies to learn about US concessions.

debkafile’s intelligence sources disclose that the Egyptian-brokered draft deal Israeli and Hamas delegates inked in Cairo Monday night, Aug. 18, said to contain, in return for a Hamas commitment to withhold rocket fire on the Israeli population, a number of major Israeli waivers. The draft is subject to endorsement by the Israeli security cabinet, which does not convene until Tuesday. They may entail lifting the siege on the Gaza Strip by permission to establish deep sea and air ports - before Hamas is made to disarm, and also talks on releasing prisoners.

The seventh truce in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict is generally expected to end Wednesday night Aug. 13, with fresh hostilities triggered by Hamas rockets. The Cairo talks never got off the ground because the gaps between Israel and the Palestinians were unbridgeable, and the Palestinian team was moreover divided against itself. This time, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon are preparing broad action in response to Palestinian rocket fire. They know that the public and the army too have run out of patience with half-measures.

In response to Egyptian mediation, Israel is ready to shrink the security zone inside the Gaza Strip by 200 meters, provided the Palestinian Hamas observes a further 72-hour ceasefire going into effect at midnight Sunday, Aug. 10, debkafile reports. And if the truce holds overnight, Israeli negotiators will return to Cairo Monday morning to resume the talks interrupted by Hamas rocket fire Friday. debkafile further reports that Israel may also allow Gaza Strip to have a seaport at some time in the future, in return for the territory’s demilitarization.

debkafile reveals exclusively the terms Israel handed in to the Cairo talks Wednesday Aug. 6 for a durable peace in the Gaza Strip. In the document Shin Bet Director Yoram Cohen put before the Egyptian intermediaries, the first key condition is based on the Oslo 2 Accords, which restricted Palestinian security officers in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria to bearing only light firearms. The second condition would grant the Israeli military freedom of action to strike tunnels designed for terrorist attacks and demolish plants manufacturing missiles.

As Israeli envoys arrived in Cairo Tuesday, Aug. 6, on the first day of a 72-hour Gaza ceasefire, government spokesmen went to great lengths to convince the public that the fighting was over and the enemy seriously degraded. debkafile: But Hamas though badly hit was not vanquished, its command level survived and the core of a Palestinian army has emerged. Al Qaeda, from its new battle arena in Lebanon, and Iran, too, drew their own conclusions from the way the IDF was held back from bringing its successful operation to victory.

Khamenei sends Iran’s nuclear program back to full capacity in mid-negotiation with the six powers. The 70,000 centrifuges demanded for Iran’s civilian nuclear plants equal the number to produce weapons-grade uranium.

The optimism disseminated this week by all parties to the nuclear talks with Iran masked the truth, that diplomacy is stalled with no way to meet its July deadline. debkafile: US President Barack Obama has quietly decided to shift the deadline to Jan. 2015. But this leaves Iran off the hook of its November commitment for a six-month suspension of its extra-fast centrifuges - and free to raise its enriched uranium stockpile. Barack Obama hopes congress will empower him to use military force if Iran cheats – and that this will hold Israel’s hand.

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threw a large spanner in nuclear diplomacy Sunday, May 11, when he told the Revolutionary Guards to start mass-producing missiles. He dismissed western expectations on limits to missile production as “stupid and idiotic.” Khamenei was responding to the US demand, raised mainly under pressure from Israel, to deal with Iran’s nuclear weapons projects and its missiles program in the coming round of talks on May 15. debkafile: The Iranian leader is also under threat of a putsch by the Guards if he approves any further nuclear concessions.

Saudi Arabia exhibited its nuclear-capable missiles for the first time Tuesday, April 29 in a military parade ending a large-scale war game. Displayed was the liquid propellant DF-3 ballistic missile (NATO designated CSS-2), purchased from China 27 years ago. This missile has a range of 2,650 km, carries a payload of 2,150 kg and a single nuclear warhead with a 1-3 MT yield. By showing off the DF-3, Riyadh was displaying its readiness for use in a potential war with Iran and its non-reliance any longer on a US nuclear shield.

As Washington and the Europeans continued to decry Russian military aggression, the US and Russians quietly began intense negotiations - through Berlin - on a deal for settling the Ukraine dispute, debkafile reports. Moscow will keep its military forces in Crimea, but discuss terms for restraining the Russian army from advancing into the Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine: Kiev must stay out of NATO, the US must guarantee not to deploy advanced radar, missile shields or ballistic missiles in the country, and local armed bodies will protect Russian-speaking areas.

Trapped in a paradox, the Obama administration asks Pakistan to hold back its nuclear arms transfer to Saudi Arabia to avoid upsetting the six-power nuclear talks with Iran. This is hugely ironic. Washington seeks to curb the nuclear race triggered by its own acquiescence to Iran’s price for diplomacy – recognizing its right to enrich uranium. The Pakistani-Saudi nuclear deal is one outcome of Obama’s inconsistent regional policies. Islamabad’s response is revealed in the coming issue of DEBKA Weekly out Friday, along with striking developments on Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and al Qaeda. Don't miss this exciting issue. Subscribe here to DEBKA Weekly.

Ali Khamenei under threat of a military coup has hemmed President Rouhani in with hardliners to hold his hand in future nuclear negotiations with the six powers. A radical Iranian lawmaker says a nuclear weapon is necessary for the balance of terror with Israel.

Mr. X is the first point man the US has headhunted in the ruling elite of post-revolutionary Islamic Iran. Close to Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani, he is the object of high expectations on the part of Barack Obama and John Kerry. The last DEBKA Weekly out Friday, Dec. 20 divulged his arcane identity, his mode of operation and his prospects of meeting those expectations. This issue also traced the slow demise of the nuclear deal the six powers signed with Iran last month. To catch such exclusives, subscribe to DEBKA Weekly by clicking here.